THE DOORWAY TO HELL (1930)

Hard to mourn the mostly lost Early Talkies (1928 - 1930) of Archie Mayo, about the dullest Warner Bros. A-list megger.*  But you never can tell, as becomes clear watching the fluid, muscular, visually imaginative direction of this early gangster pic.  Sharp thru-out in film terms, its more advanced techniques probably stemming from cinematographer Barney McGill (backed by producer Darryl F. Zanuck?) rather than Mayo.  Talkie innovations & silent-era reclamations galore: low-angle camera set-ups; frame busting close-ups & two-shots; design-aided claustrophobic settings (no credit given, but Anton Grot?); crepuscular lighting for street scenes in warehouse & tenement districts (on fabulous backlot sets); the remarkably stylish work still feeling fresh.  Even the gangster storyline, anything but fresh, giving off the spark of a first telling.  Gentle Lew Ayres, fresh off ALL QUIET OF THE WESTERN FRONT/’30, cast wildly against type as a protection-racket beer hustler, grabs control of warring illegal distributors in prohibition-era New York, forcing them to tend their separate territories while uniting as a syndicate to benefit all.  But once Ayres has it all up & running, he tries to walk away from the life with a new wife (unaware she’s diddling second-in-command James Cagney on the side*).  Profits plunge; rivalries heat up.  Desperate to get Ayres back in the city, the mobsters kidnap his teenage brother out of military academy and hold him as ransom.  (Odd plot turn, no?)  But the nab goes wrong, the kid dies, and when Ayres returns to town, it’s purely for revenge.  Very little needs excusing on this one, with an exceptional final arc that starts with a prison escape and ends in a fatalistic denouement that plays just off screen to great effect.  And while the film won’t alter the triumvirate of early ‘30s gangster classics (LITTLE CAESAR, THE PUBLIC ENEMY, SCARFACE), it stands nicely just to the side as precursor.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Most wanted among the Mayo missing, MY MAN/’28, Fanny Brice’s (apparently) unhappy film debut which survives only as a soundtrack on VitaPhone sound disks.

DOUBLE-BILL: Of that threesome, THE PUBLIC ENEMY/’31, which famously swapped male leads after filming began, Cagney moving up to lead.  Something that could have happened here where Cagney receives fifth-billing for the second largest part.  (Same as Clark Gable in THE SECRET SIX/’31 where M-G-M had him billed seventh.)